Avocado

The avocado (Persea americana) is
a tree native to Central Mexico, classified in the
flowering plant family Lauraceae along with cinnamon,
camphor and bay laurel. Avocado or alligator pear
also refers to the fruit (botanically a large berry
that contains a single seed) of the tree.

Avocados are commercially valuable and are cultivated
in tropical and Mediterranean climates throughout
the world. They have a green-skinned, fleshy body
that may be pear-shaped, egg-shaped, or spherical,
and ripens after harvesting. Trees are partially
self-pollinating and often are propagated through
grafting to maintain a predictable quality and quantity
of the fruit.

P. americana, or the avocado, originated in the
state of Puebla, Mexico. The native, undomesticated
variety is known as a criollo, and is small, with
dark black skin, and contains a large seed. The
oldest evidence of avocado use was found in a cave
located in Coxcatlán, Puebla, Mexico, that
dates to around 10,000 BC. The avocado tree also
has a long history of cultivation in Central and
South America; a water jar shaped like an avocado,
dating to AD 900, was discovered in the pre-Incan
city of Chan Chan. The earliest known written account
of the avocado in Europe is that of Martín
Fernández de Enciso (c.1470–c.1528)
in 1518 or 1519 in his book, Suma De Geographia
Que Trata De Todas Las Partidas Y Provincias Del
Mundo. The first written record in English of the
use of the word 'avocado' was by Hans Sloane in
a 1696 index of Jamaican plants. The plant was introduced
to Indonesia in 1750, Brazil in 1809, the Levant
in 1908, and South Africa and Australia in the late
19th century.

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